Went to the Sherwood Forest Renaissance Faire this past weekend. It was a lot of fun. I went with Denise and her husband, Rick. We had all 3 gone about a month ago. I didn’t really buy much the last time we went because I didn’t have any money, but this time, I had budgeted some money to spend. I got some neat items this time. I bought a coin skirt for bellydancing. I also bought a forehead jewelry piece that ties on with a ribbon.
After I got home from the Renaissance Faire, I put on my new coin skirt and my bellydancer top that I made myself for Halloween a few years ago and did my bellydance workout video. It kicked my butt! But I look forward to being able to do it like it’s nothing a few months from now. I want to get some more bellydance workout and instructional videos. I love bellydance. It’s so much fun and makes you feel sexy. Denise bought a completely awesome and beautiful bellydancer outfit at the Faire. She told me that she had tried bellydancing in the past, but felt like she wasn’t doing the moves properly, so had stopped trying. I told her that the more she does it, the easier it will get and she’d get the moves down eventually. I mentioned us maybe meeting up like once a week or every other week or whatever to do bellydance together once we’re both a little better at it. I think it would be a lot of fun to do it with someone else.
Bellydance is something I do for myself. I don’t ever plan to perform in a bellydance show or anything like that, but it would be fun if I ended up doing that. I simply like the way bellydance makes me feel. It’s sensual and expressive and it’s ancient. I love ancient things. When there’s history behind something, that adds value to it, at least for me it does.
Making my workouts fun is of a high priority to me because right now, half the time, I am dreading my workouts. And it’s not because I don’t enjoy working out, because I love to workout. The problem is that I’m not fit right now, so my workouts are more resembling a chore than anything enjoyable. But I’m serious about working out and getting fit and into shape. I’m serious about reclaiming the body I had a little over a year ago. I know I can do it. I just have to seriously apply myself to the task and I know it will get done and it will be accomplished.
I’m so serious about getting fit and feeling better about myself that I am dedicating pretty much almost all of my free time on my days off from work to working out. Every day, I do some kind of workout. For instance, today, since I’m working, I will use the elliptical machine on my lunchbreak for 45 minutes. I had planned on using the treadmill to do my walk/jog for a mile, but ended up doing bellydancing instead. So, after work today, I will do workout #2 for the day and do my 1 mile of jog/walk on the treadmill. I’m serious about sticking to using the treadmill twice a week. And there’s no reason I can’t do a second workout within the same day. I may even start doing 2 workouts a day on the days that I work. I’ll do my 45 minutes on the elliptical during my lunch hour and then, after work, I can do the treadmill or one of my workout videos.
Nothing has meant more to me than my getting fit right now means to me. It is the most important thing in my life right now, even more important than my worry over my finances, and that’s saying a lot. I don’t want to do what I did a few years ago and attempt to shoot for the goal of participating in a bodybuilding competition. I have too many tattoos to do that anyway. But I do want to go back to the dedication I had for working out at that time. I worked out for 3-4 hours a day on the days I didn’t work and for around an hour and a half on the days that I worked. Once I get my new gym membership, it will be so much easier to accomplish that goal of 3-4 hours of working out on my days off. Also, once my bicycle is fixed and ready to ride again, that will add to my weekly workout. But I would plan to also do around an hour of lifting weights on the same day that I ride my bicycle for 2-plus hours. I will simply have the gym on my bicycling route and will stop in and lift some weights and then finish my ride home.
Things will be so much better for me overall once I’ve lost the 42 pounds I have left to lose and have increased my muscle mass and lowered my body fat percentage. It will be so much better when working out is my favorite thing to do again. I will be so much less stressed about everything in general. All my frustrations will be worked out in the gym or on the bicycle or the treadmill or the elliptical.
I can’t wait to enjoy how my body looks again. I keep flashing back to when I had a body closer to my ideal for myself. I keep seeing the pictures I had taken of myself back then and how my body felt so much better and how I could wear just about anything I wanted. Problem was that I didn’t appreciate my body back then. I just took it for granted. I took it for granted that I would always work out and that I would always look that way. But I was wrong. So very wrong. How could I know that a few years later, I would meet the guy whom I would think was the absolute love of my life and that I would completely let myself go? How could I know that I would put on as much weight as I did? How could I know the emotional effect he would have and the resulting physical effects? How could I have known? I couldn’t have. But I won’t make that mistake again. Working out will be priority number 1 in my life and I will fight to keep it in that number 1 slot. Any man that wants to be part of my life will just have to accept that about me. I will not become a lump of jiggly flesh ever again. I just won’t. I refuse to allow this to happen to me again.
Being active is important to me and I allowed that to be lacking when I was with Jon-Pierre. I allowed him to dictate my level, or lack, of activity. I allowed my dedication to him to determine whether or not I had enough time to remain active and continue working out. In order to spend more time with him, I would stay up late at night and then not get much sleep. So, in the afternoons, when I would normally go to the gym and workout, I was napping, trying to catch up on my sleep instead. As a result, I stopped working out altogether and paved the way for my weight gain. I should have never allowed that to happen. Now I have to work hard to get back on track. But I will succeed, there’s no question about that. I am fully dedicated to this goal.
I’m quite a bit frustrated right now. See, since I changed my diet per the nutritional consult at the natural health center 2 weeks ago, not only have I not lost weight, but I’ve actually gained half a pound. Sure, I’ve been working out every day, but I’m not lifting weight so I shouldn’t be putting on enough muscle mass to completely arrest my weight loss and even cause a slight gain. I should still be losing, even if it’s only a pound a week.
This is an extremely disheartening thing for me because I lose my motivation very easily. And, believe me, stalling out completely on my weight loss for 2 weeks now will more than adequately kill my motivation and give me the “why should I even bother” attitude about it. I don’t want it to be that way and am forcing myself to remain focused and to keep my goal in mind and to stay positive. I have to pep-talk myself to keep myself from being negative over the whole thing. It’s just so hard when I should be down 2-4 pounds and I’m actually up half a pound.
I just don’t understand what I’m doing wrong. I’m eating a controlled amount of carbs. I’m eating lots of quality protein. I’m eating fresh veggies. I’m cooking 2 of my 3 meals a day. Only one of my meals is a prepared meal in a box. I eat a high protein yogurt and a can of tuna for my snacks. I just don’t understand why I’ve stalled.
I took my last dose of the prescribed herbs this morning. I don’t see how, but maybe they’re the culprit. The reason I don’t see how they would be to blame is because they make me feel more balanced and calm and relaxed. I’m getting good sleep again, and that should be helping me lose weight.
I struggle with what I think may be borderline bulimia. I have times where I’m emotionally vulnerable and so I binge on whatever I can get my hands on. I will just eat and eat and eat until it hurts. The whole while, I’ll be thinking to myself “why am I eating? I’m not hungry.” But I can’t make myself stop. When I get overly frustrated or overwhelmed at all emotionally, that’s what I feel compelled to turn to. I seek out food. I never acknowledged it before, but now I think there’s an actual problem there and I don’t like it one bit.
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